Reply #12: agreed

[roscoeroscoe]

remember robert heinline's discussion of responsibility and freedom? in his science fiction novels, his characters wind up searching for a world where you can walk down the street naked if you want, but on the other hand if you happen to 'accidentally' run into a kid while you're drunk, the punishment would be to... have a cop smash into you with a car. of course, in a heinline world, any crime like polanski's would earn you a trip to the gallows.

reading 'starship troopers' when i was a kid was a big influence. i've always felt capital crimes should be punishable by death. of course, that's easy before we found out a few years ago about all the guys on death row thanks to corrupt trials and faked-up evidence...